Legislative Power Quotes
Not the current Daily News. He was very critical of the NY State Legislature changing the laws affecting wills and inheritance in order to benefit some special interest when there was a profound effect on millions of other people that had not been considered by the legislature, the majority of which had never even read the legislation, but were following party leader’s instructions or that of powerful committee chairmen.
The colonists in America had no representatives in Parliament. Galloway who opposed armed rebellion against Britain {621966} admitted that the British treatment of America was wrong but saw other solutions. It will never be known if any of them might have worked. The world would have been very different had they been tried.
This was one of the first elucidations of this principle which became so important for the American union and Revolution. The 1754 debate was over Franklin's public effort for a Colonial Federation (see {37005}, {37006}, & {583424}). Shirley liked the idea but thought that the King of England should appoint the members of a Colonial Congress. This was Franklin's counter, arguing that each colony should elect its own members.
He was commenting on the Constitution that had come out of the 1789 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and did not yet have the Bill of Rights.
There was much New England dissatisfaction with the disproportionate power held by the Southern states as a result of counting three-fifths of the slave population for apportioning Congressional seats. In addition they were disproportionately hurt by the War of 1812 and the Embargo on trade with England. Secession was proposed but failed to get a majority. A number of proposed Constitutional amendments were voted upon. The super-majority herein required would have diminished their vulnerability to Southern power.
This was published after he died.
He won the debate and the Congress created the first committee to investigate and oversee military affairs.
The drafters of the Constitution were well aware of this view of Montesquieu’s which was one of the main bases of separation of powers and checks and balances in America.
